Макс Коллинз - True Crime

“Yours ain’t bad,” I said.

He sighed heavily; a weight-of-the-world sigh. “It cost me. And it wasn’t just one operation. It was a whole series of ’em, out West. No hack like Doc Moran.”

“He’s dead, you know.”

“Lot of that going around.”

This time I was the one who laughed humorlessly. “Threatening me, John? Or referring to your own greatly exaggerated demise?”

He sneered. “What do you think?”

“I think you went to a hell of a lot of trouble to get officially dead. You should’ve dropped off the face of the earth by now. Why get back in the game again, so soon, or at all — when you went through so much trouble getting out?”

The sneer got nastier. “Guess.”

“I’ll take a wild one — money. Death is free, but only if you really die, right? Take Piquett — he wouldn’t come cheap, not for a scam this size. He’s risking disbarment, after all.”

Another laugh. “He risks that every day. But, no, he didn’t come cheap.”

“Or Zarkovich and O’Neill, either.”

“No.”

“Or Anna Sage.”

“Or Anna Sage,” he admitted.

The muffled sound of hillbilly music could be heard from the tourist camp, behind us; Ma had finally found her station.

“Does Polly Hamilton know?”

“That I’m alive? No. You’re part of a select group, Heller.”

“No names, remember? It does explain why you came to my office personally, to put me in motion where Polly Hamilton was concerned. I came to think you were just some con man Piquett hired. You did it yourself, though, to keep the circle nice and tight. A secret like this isn’t easily kept. Fewer conspirators the better.”

He said nothing.

I swigged the Coke; finished it. Tossed the bottle into the trees. “Yeah, it must’ve cost you, really cost you — or you wouldn’t be risking your new face out in the open like this... not to mention this lunatic plot to kidnap Hoover. Jesus! You really believe the government’ll pay you people off?”

“Yeah,” he said, testily. “I think they’ll pay. And I don’t think they’ll even tell the public it ever happened.”

That hadn’t occurred to me.

I said, “You figure they’ll put on a press blackout till they get Hoover back.”

“I do. And after. They got a lot of press and prestige tied up in that fat little bastard. He’s riding my ‘death’ like a rodeo pony.”

Ma’s hillbilly music in the background lent some color to his remark.

I grunted a laugh. “Must frustrate you — here you are ‘dead,’ and the fuck-ups you fooled, you used, are using you to make themselves look like Saturday afternoon heroes.”

“G-men,” he said, derisively. “They’re going to kill us all, you know. That’s why I went out my own way, on my own terms. The feds, they’re dopes, they’re fuck-ups, they’re boobs — but they got money and time on their side. It’s over. This whole damn game is over. Even a chowderhead like Nelson can see that.”

Male laughter came from up by the cabins; they were taking Karpis’ advice and making merry.

I said, “Well, Floyd sees the writing on the wall, all right. He said much the same thing as you, this afternoon. He said it was just a matter of time.”

“Well, it’s true, and this snatch is risky but it stands to stake every man one of us to a ticket out of this outlaw life.”

“Yeah, and you get a double share.”

He nodded, smiling; under the mustache, I could see the famous wry wise-guy Dillinger smile, pushing through the tight, new face. “Over a hundred grand. That ought to buy me a farm.”

“If this job doesn’t buy all of you the farm.”

He put a hand against my chest, flat; there was more menace in the gesture than in all of Nelson’s tommy-gun waving. “Why?” he asked. “You planning to pull the plug on us, Heller? You the undercover man in the woodpile?”

“No names, remember?” I said, suddenly a little scared. “I’m not here to pull anybody’s plug.”

“Why are you here? And why the hell are you calling yourself Jimmy Lawrence? When I heard that name kicked around, I had to wonder. It’s common enough, but...”

“Nitti gave it to me to use. I’m helping you , really. He figured it’d be good having somebody named Jimmy Lawrence wandering around, after the Biograph.”

Dillinger flicked the stub of his cigarette away, smiled mildly, said, “Nitti’s smart. Too fuckin’ smart for his own good. He’s gonna die of being smart someday.”

“He plays people like a hand of cards, I’ll give you that. As for why I’m here, it’s strictly a mission of mercy — and it’s with Nitti’s full okay.”

“Make me believe that.”

I told him, in enough detail to convince him, that I was here to retrieve Candy Walker’s moll Lulu for her ailing farmer father.

He seemed to buy it, farmer’s kid that he was himself; but he said, “I can check on this with a phone call.”

“I know you can. But do you really want Nitti to know you’re in the neighborhood? He’s not exactly going to be tickled pink about what you’re planning for tomorrow, you know.”

Dillinger got out a new cigarette, lit it up; in the orange glow of the flame, his mask of a face gave little away. “He’s not going to know I was involved — unless you tell him.”

“Why should I tell him?”

He didn’t answer me. Instead he said, reflectively, “I suppose you’d like to just take the girl and scram. Just hop in one of these cars and rescue the fair maiden, and not get caught up in tomorrow’s business.”

My answer to that flatly posed question would be crucial; I could see it in his face, hear it in his voice, if just barely — he was doing his best not to tip his hand.

But I could tell what he wanted to hear — and what he didn’t want to hear.

So I said, “Hell, no. I’m in.”

He studied me. “You’re in?”

“Hell, yes. Twenty-five gees worth, I am.”

“You’re supposed to be a stand-up guy, Heller. So honest you quit the force and all. Why all of a sudden are you willing to get in the kidnapping racket?”

I put on my best smirk; inside I wasn’t smiling. “Hoover’s nothing to me. The feds gave me nothing but grief, when you were staging that ballet at the Biograph. Make ’em look as stupid as you like, and squeeze as much dough out as you can.”

He studied me.

“Look, I can use twenty-five gees, friend. I had two clients in the last month and a half — and you were one of ’em.”

He drew on the cigarette.

I said, “But I’m not in for murder, understand. I want your word Hoover won’t be killed. Even if they don’t fork over the dough.”

He said nothing for a while. Fiddles were playing on Ma’s radio station.

Then he said, “You got my word,” and held his hand out for me to shake.

I shook it.

“Hell,” I said, “all I got to do is bunk in with some good-looking women for a few weeks. I had worse jobs.”

Dillinger laughed; a genuine laugh. “Yeah. There’s worse ways to score twenty-five grand. And when it’s over, you can take the skirt and blow.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“But Heller — if you’re stringing me along — if you fuck this up for me — you’re dead. Got that? Plain old dead.”

“Understood.”

He threw the latest cigarette away; it sizzled in the grass, and we walked back around front of the tourist cabins.

As we walked, I said, “You were some actor, back in my office that time. You really had me going.”

He smiled. “I always have had a smooth line of bull.”

Me, too, John. Me, too.

We were gathered much as the night before, in the same smoky room, only now sun was filtering through the sheer curtains, dust motes floating, as Doc Barker said, “Ever hear of a guy named Nate Heller?”